


Expected, Welcome

by fangirl_squee



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Brief mentions of other characters - Freeform, M/M, Multi, brief/light mention of ephrim's injury (non graphic), spoilers for up to SiH38
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 19:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20120608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_squee/pseuds/fangirl_squee
Summary: Ephrim and Throndir try to make a home in their new world. Fero tries to find one.





	Expected, Welcome

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to maddie, for betaing and for being a constant comfort

The new Hieron they find themselves in is strange to navigate. The University and the Outhouse float together with part of the forest that had once surrounded them. From Ephrim and Throndir's bedroom window you can see where the forest fades into the new Spring, hazy and green.

It is beautiful, to watch the sunlight filter through to them from above and below. It is more beautiful, still, to feel that they might actually be around to appreciate it in a week, a month, a year. The time that stretches ahead of them feels like its own miracle, even if Ephrim’s days continue to be busy ones.

The University takes a lot to manage. Ephrim is equal parts jealous and relieved that the Outhouse seems to run perfectly well on its own without Fero to guide it. 

He still looks for Fero there, sometimes. 

Sometimes Throndir will catch Ephrim looking out the window for a moment too long, Ephrim’s eyes searching the new horizon, and he'll put a hand on Ephrim's arm and say; 

"He always turns up eventually."

And Ephrim will nod, and change the subject to something else: plans for the university, how best to connect them to the different levels of Hieron, the new crop coming in.

Sometimes, Ephrim will catch Throndir looking up at the clear sky, eyes flicking from bird to bird.

Ephrim hooks his chin over Throndir's shoulder, his arms sliding around Throndir's waist to hold him close as they both look up into the new green sky.

"Every time I have thought he was dead he’s turned back up," says Ephrim. "Wherever he is, he’ll be alright.”

Throndir hums in agreement, and lets Ephrim pull him back inside for dinner. 

Sometimes they watch and wait together, curled around each other in their bed, their eyes sliding to the window as they talk around the topic of Fero in soft voices.

Maybe tomorrow there’ll be some sign of him. Maybe.

  
  


One morning, Ephrim walks out to their small courtyard garden and sees a flock of sparrows, their brown feathers flashing in the dappled sunlight. He moves slowly, carefully. It's hard to tell at first why the sight of them strikes him as so odd, until he notices the way the birds are moving - as mirror images of each other, like one hand copying the movements of the other. 

Ephrim’s breath catches in his throat.

"Fero?"

The birds pause in place, like prey sensing a predator’s movement.

Ephrim swallows. "You can come inside, you know."

The birds look up at him, tilting their heads to one side, the movement rippling across the flock. Ephrim takes a tentative half-step towards them and they scatter, fluttering up into the sky before they reform into a flock, swirling above the University. They fly off, towards another level, dissapereing into the green.

"Come back any time!" Ephrim calls after them. 

He's not sure if they hear him. 

  
  


He tells Throndir, of course, and Throndir remembers the conversation a few weeks later, when he follows Kodiak into the forest and finds him sharing his dinner with a cougar. 

The cougar looks up at him, startled. It has, Throndir thinks, Fero’s eyes. 

"Fero?"

The cougar sits up and for a moment Throndir half-readies himself for an attack, but then it springs away, the sound of its footsteps quickly muffled by the forest. 

Kodiak woofs softly at him. 

"Yeah, " sighs Throndir, "I know."

  
  


Fero hasn't really settled on a shape or a place since Hieron came into its new form. Part of the reason for that is the joy of transformation, the fact that he can turn into anything again without worrying about it causing destruction, and the other part is… well. He isn't particularly looking to have a conversation with anything or anyone just yet, and it feels like the longer he spends in one form, the more the animals come to know him, know who he is. 

He moves through the new levels, searching for his old home and finding only fragments: a bed frame there, a crystal wall there. Some parts of Hieron are still settling into place, but the pieces of his cave are too far separated to come together into something familiar.

The only place he truly recognises, that's still  _ intact _ , is the University.

He doesn't really like going back. He can still see the shape of Samot in the air where he tore him apart, Samol's words echoing in his head. He skirts around it, watching from a tree, as an owl, when Lem clumsily proposes to Emmanuel, as a mouse as Adaire and Hella stroll through a market, as a dog watching as Hadrian tries to figure out gardening.

Eventually though, his wings and hooves and claws lead him back towards the University. He pads through the courtyard garden as a small cat, looking up at the new growth that’s sprung up since he was last there. The Verbenas are new, he thinks. They’re very pretty, the small flowers grouped together and leaning towards the gentle sunlight, bright against the green.

Fero likes them so much that he gives into the cat-brain part of himself, and curls up for a nap. The flowers lean over him, sheltering him from immediate view, safe.

He cracks an eye open as Ephrim steps out into the courtyard. Ephrim moves slowly, a basket over his good arm, as he heads towards the end of the garden where vegetables grow.

Fero blinks, slowly. He doesn’t feel as tense as he thought he would at the sight of Ephrim so close. He stretches, moving slowly towards where Ephrim kneels next to vegetable patch.

Ephrim is humming, faintly. A children’s rhyme Fero only half-remembers, something about fields and forests and journey’s ending. Fero sits, his tail curled delicately around his paws as he listens.

He can tell when Ephrim finally notices him because Ephrim gets very still, the line of his back tensing. He looks towards Fero slowly, setting his tools down next to him gently and folding his hands on his thighs.

“Fero?” says Ephrim, keeping his voice low, “is that you?”

Fero lets the cat inside his guide his movements, far easier than thinking. He blinks at Ephrim for a moment before he pads forward, headbutting his arm.

Ephrim huffs a laugh. “I… don’t know what to make of that answer.”

Fero sits back, watching him.

“I…” Ephrim lets out a long breath, running a hand through his hair. “If you are, you’re welcome to stay.” He pauses.”And if you’re not, too, I suppose. As long as you don’t mind dogs.”

Fero’s tail twitches.

“Kodiak’s a good dog,” says Ephrim.

Fero laughs. It comes out of him as a sort of meow, which seems to startle Ephrim a little before he huffs another laugh.

“Well,” says Ephrim, “Fero or not, let’s see if we can find you something to eat.”

Fero watches him move back towards the door, waiting until his hand is hovering over the doorknob before he pads after him, winding his way through Ephrim’s legs and inside. He hops up onto a chair, to get a better view.

Ephrim laughs. “Well. Now I really do have my suspicions about who you are.”

Fero’s tail twitches again.

“Fine, fine,” says Ephrim, “Stay however you’d like.”

He putters around the kitchen for a few minutes before he sets a small amount of cold meat in front of Fero. Fero stretches out his paws on the table as he eats, claws flexing. The cat inside him like this  _ very _ much, and would like to stay. There’s a comfy-looking chair within Fero’s eyeline that looks just  _ perfect _ for a nap.

Ephrim pauses at the edge of the door. “It’s good to see you again.”

He vanishes upstairs before Fero can react. 

  
  


Ephrim is only  _ pretty _ sure the cat is Fero. He stays only  _ pretty sure _ until the third day of the cat’s visit, when Ephrim comes downstairs to find that it’s no longer a cat at all, but a squirrel.

“Well,” says Ephrim.

He opens his mouth and then closes it again. The squirrel chitters at him. Ephrim has a strong suspicious it’s laughter.

Throndir pauses in the doorway, his eyes moving from Ephrim to the squirrel, currently sitting on the back of one of the chairs.

“Okay,” he says, eyes sliding back to Ephrim again, “So what’s on the docket today?”

They talk through the upcoming week’s work - food supplies and transport and repairs that need to be made. The squirrel chitters sometimes, accompanied by the kind of  _ woof _ from Kodiak and Throndir can make sense of.

Fero or not, the squirrel has a lot of opinions about how they should go about repairing the University's many bookcases.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” says Throndir, to the squirrel.

Ephrim laugh, and the squirrel chitters its laughter again, hopping a little closer to them on the table. Not within arms reach, but still. Closer.

  
  


It’s a bird next. Throndir finds this out when he comes back from a week of trying to figure out how best to connect themselves to the level below them, to find Ephrim asleep in their cozy reading chair, a sparrow perched on his shoulder.

The sparrow chirps as he comes in, sweeping around his head and fluttering onto his shoulder for a moment before it settles on the back of one of their kitchen chairs. The movement makes Ephrim stir, smiling sleepily up at him from the couch.

“You’re back,” says Ephrim, one arm outstretched towards him.

“I am,” says Throndir.

He steps towards Ephrim, pressing their foreheads together in greeting. Ephrim sighs, his body still relaxed from sleep, clumsy and pliable as Throndir takes him in his arms.

The bird chirps again, fluttering over to perch on the arm of the couch.

Ephrim laughs into Throndir’s mouth, pulling back slightly.

“I suppose I should ask how it went,” says Ephrim.

Throndir smiles, pulling over one of their kitchen chairs so that he can sit next to Ephrim while he speaks, close enough that Ephrim can lean his head on Throndir’s shoulder.

The sparrow hops around a little as Throndir talks, restless energy coming off it in waves, before it settles again on Ephrim’s shoulder. Throndir feels Ephrim go very still against him, and it takes a great deal of willpower not to focus his attention down onto the little bird.

They talk about it that night, voices hushed. Surely this is a good sign. Surely this means that, soon, Fero would be his halfling self with them again.

  
  


Fero, stubborn creature that he is, does not do that. Instead, the next morning they’re greeted by a hulking black bird stalking around their kitchen, its huge wings almost knocking over several glasses before he clumsily settles for perching on the back of the couch.

Ephrim makes a strangled noise. “A  _ panther _ ?  _ Seriously _ ?”

The bird gives a very self-satisfied squark.

Unlike the other creatures Fero has been in their home, this one sticks close, even hopping up the stairs after them, settling at the foot of their bed before it fixes them with a look from its strangely-Fero eyes.

“Fine, fine,” says Ephrim, “Just don’t hog the covers.”

The bird squawks again, huge wings stretching out again before it settles down.

It doesn’t hog the covers, but its long claws do scratch them in their sleep. When Ephrim glares at it, the bird gives a squawk, wriggling to settle down again for the night.

  
  


In the morning, the weight at Ephrim’s feet feels different. He blinks down at the foot of their bed. The shape sleeping there has less feathers than it did when they’d gone to sleep. None, in fact.

Ephrim keeps his body very still, reaching out to tap Throndir on the shoulder to wake him.

In his sleep, Fero frowns and turns a little more towards them. The dappled morning light catches his face, illuminating the freckles dotting his halfling features. He yawns, screwing his eyes shut and stretching his arms and legs out like a cat might, fingers and toes flexing.

He blinks over at them, then looks down at his body. He blinks again, more slowly this time.

“Oh,” says Fero.

“Good morning,” says Throndir, his voice quiet.

Ephrim opens his mouth to echo him, but no sound comes out. He swallows around his suddenly-aching throat.

“I knew you’d come back,” he manages to say.

“I was already back,” says Fero. His voice is rough, scratchy from disuse. “I’ve been here a while.”

“I know,” says Ephrim. His hand flexes in the sheet as he searches for the words. “But it’s good to see this form of you.”

Fero looks down, wriggling his toes. “I kind of didn’t mean to do it.” He pauses. “I was going to do an alligator next.”

Ephrim groans, and Fero laughs, the sound so familiar and more sorely missed than even Ephrim had realised. He puts a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound he makes, unsure if it’s a sob or a laugh.

Throndir shifts towards him and so does Fero, small hand hovering over his bad arm for a moment before he reaches up to rest a hand on Ephrim’s shoulder.

“I won’t,” says Fero, “I’ve probably overstayed my welcome anyway.”

Throndir catches his wrist as he leans back. “You haven’t.”

Fero freezes, but he at least doesn’t pull away. Ephrim can feel him trembling a little, the bedclothes shaking.

Throndir takes a deep breath, adding, “You won’t, ever.”

“I-” Fero presses his lips together, his toes curling against the quilt. “You guys must be sick of me invading your home.”

"It could be your home too,” says Ephrim, keeping his voice soft, “If you want it.”

Fero looks down, and Ephrim’s heart sinks, his stomach twisting.

“You don’t have to,” he adds, hurriedly. “Just, if you’d like, you can always-”

“I don’t-” says Fero quickly, “My home’s gone, and so is every other place I ever tried to make one, and I don’t… this place is still here.”

Ephrim nods, not trusting his voice.

“Stay as long as you’d like,” says Throndir.

Fero flexes his hands, fingers plucking at the fabric of the quilt. “What if I don’t know how long that’s gonna be?”

Ephrim reaches out, covering Fero’s hand with his. Fero inhales sharply, looking up at him.

“That’s the thing about homes,” says Ephrim, “They’re there whenever you want them, for however long that is.”

Fero takes a long breath in, then out. “Okay.”

Ephrim squeezes his hand again. He leans forward to press his forehead to Fero’s like he does with Throndir after they’ve been apart. He feels Fero’s hand on his shoulder twitch as Fero shifts slightly, their lips brushing. It’s feather-light and brief, and it takes Ephrim’s breath away entirely.

He keeps their foreheads pressed together, feeling the puff of Fero’s quick breaths against his lips before he leans forward to kiss Fero again. Fero makes a soft sound against his mouth, fingers twisting the sleeve of Ephrim’s sleep top.

Ephrim feels Throndir shift beside them, lying back to give them more room. Instead, Ephrim leans against him, pulling Fero with him until they’re almost lying on top of Throndir. Throndir huffs a breath, the sound of it drawing Fero’s attention enough that he breaks off the kiss, looking towards Throndir.

Throndir wets his lips, eyes flicking from Fero to Ephrim and back again. “Can I...?”

Ephrim nods, not quite letting go of Fero as Fero leans towards Throndir. Throndir tilts his head down to meet him, his hand tangling in Fero’s hair. Ephrim watches them, trying to memorise the slow flush of Fero’s cheeks and the flutter of Throndir’s eyelashes.

Fero leans back, after a moment, looking down to where their hands are still tangled together on top of the covers.

“I’ve never done this whole  _ home _ thing with other people before,” says Fero. “I might not be amazing at it.”

“Neither are we,” says Throndir, “but we’re getting there, I think.”

He smiles at Ephrim, and Ephrim smiles back, the warmth of Fero’s hand and Thorndir’s smile settling in his chest.

“Yeah,” says Ephrim, “We’re getting there. We can get there together.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi: mariusperkins on most places


End file.
